Bruno, the brown bear that last month ambled from Italy to southern Germany, has been shot and killed by a group of hunters near Lake Spitzing, southern Germany, a Bavarian environment ministry spokesman said.
Italy protested to German authorities on Monday after Bruno, a brown bear who last month ambled from Italy to southern Germany, was shot dead by Bavarian hunters. Environment Minister Pecoraro Scanio announced he had sent a letter of complaint to his opposite number in Berlin, Gabriel Sigmar, saying that Rome had expected to see a "more coordinated attempt" to save the animal.
"Italy cannot accept killing as an approach to controlling the bear population," he said.
The two-year-old animal, who came from Italy's Trentino region, was shot because Bavarian authorities considered him a danger to humans, especially after he began to prowl around inhabited areas. He was found and killed in the early hours of Monday near the Spitzing Lake in southern Bavaria. Regional officials said he died quickly and without suffering.
Bruno had sparked panic among Bavarian farmers by attacking livestock as he searched for food. He ripped the innards out of dozens of sheep and also fed on rabbits, poultry and honey plundered from beehives.
He became a media star throughout Europe and animal lovers in Germany, Italy and Austria campaigned to save him from the hunters' guns. For a few weeks a group of Finnish hunters and their dogs, accompanied by a vet armed with tranquiliser darts, tried to catch Bruno in order to take him to a protected area.
But their search failed and on Friday was suspended, leaving the way open for the hunters.
"It's a bad sign for everyone interested in the return of this species (to Europe)," Pecoraro Scanio said.
Bruno, whose official name was Jj1, was born in the Adamello-Brenta national park in northern Italy as part of a five-year project to reintroduce bears into one of their traditional habitats.
In May he began walking north, crossing Austria and ending up in the Oberammagau area of Bavaria. He was the first wild bear seen in the country for about 170 years. Italian environmentalists reacted with disgust after news of his death emerged.
"Killing animals that belong to a protected species is a barbaric act," said Fulco Pratesi, president of WWF Italia. "By shooting Bruno they've destroyed years of work". ENPA, Italy's animal protection association, blasted the Bavarian government, saying it had acted "in the worst possible way".
"They failed to save this protected animal from the hunters, who just couldn't wait to shoot the bear on the pretext that it was dangerous," it said. At least one German environmental group said it was considering legal action over the killing. "This is the stupidest of all possible solutions," the German Association for the Defence of Nature said.
Officials at the Abruzzo national park in central Italy, where there are several bears living wild, agreed, saying the decision to shoot Bruno was "incomprehensible". According to Bavarian officials, the bear is to be stuffed and put on show at a natural museum in Nymphenberg, where visitors can also see the last brown bear seen in Germany before Bruno. That animal was killed by hunters in 1835.
